VerbaVista

Here's what those 45 minutes usually look like:

→ 15 min: Finding content appropriate for the topic
→ 10 min: Adapting it to the student's level
→ 10 min: Creating and/or editing activities
→ 10 min: Formatting it to be classroom-ready

Hi, I'm Stephanie, founder of VerbaVista and longtime English teacher. I used to wake up at or before 6AM every day, even weekends. I'd prep my lessons for the day, finish grading from the day before, and line up current events articles because most of my students had outgrown the course content.

VerbaVista handles all of that because it already knows your student.

Create student profiles once. Generate tailored lessons anytime. Download ready-to-teach PDFs or click to copy text snippets and paste into a template you love.

Early access ends Jan 31. Create your first lessons on us at VerbaVista dot com.

Hi there, I'm Stephanie. I taught ESL for 14 years before building VerbaVista, a lesson planning platform for English teachers with adult students. Here's one reason why it exists:

I had one student in Rio who was a cardiologist. He treated foreign patients at a hospital.

He needed medical English: greetings for patients, treatment explanations, common medical terminology, and cultural differences between Brazilian and American doctor-patient relationships.

Unfortunately, the language school gave him an office English textbook.

Needless to say, I improvised. A lot. I found nursing English materials. I pointed out key cultural differences I knew from a patient perspective.

He was paying top dollar. Although I was doing my best at the time, he got piecemeal lessons that were far from optimal.

As ridiculous as it sounds, this is still the reality for so many adult English learners. The materials don't match their actual lives.

VerbaVista exists because I got tired of watching teachers improvise under impossible conditions. I was also tired of watching students waste time and money on textbooks and one-size-fits-all courses.

Built for teachers of adult learners, from corporate professionals to newcomers building new lives.

Early access ends Jan 31. Head to https://verbavista.com/ to try us out for free.

In just ONE WEEK, our founder will give the first public presentation of VerbaVista. Over 1,600 people have registered already!

Come to the live virtual event on November 19th and learn how VerbaVista empowers English teachers and adult English learners. Bonus: You'll also get the chance to vote for VerbaVista as fan favorite in Immerse's AI for Good cohort.

Register here: https://events.ringcentral.com/events/immerse-demo-day

How are you practicing hospitality in your classroom this week?

https://substack.com/profile/61750536-stephanie/note/c-163837709

Ditto, except for adult English language learners, too 😊.

"Despite decades of research and advocacy around differentiated instruction for English learners, many curriculum publishers continue to design products around a 'grade-level box' that assumes a uniform level of language proficiency and background knowledge. These one-size-fits-all materials often meet state standards but rarely meet the needs of English learners who exist at various points along the language acquisition continuum...

Curriculum that doesn’t account for these variations forces teachers to do heavy lifting to retrofit materials, spending hours supplementing, modifying, and differentiating lessons that were built on narrow assumptions.

Another oversight is the belief that language proficiency progresses evenly across all domains: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. In reality a student might excel at oral communication while struggling to read grade-level texts or write a coherent paragraph. Yet, curriculum materials rarely provide scaffolded support for this reality. Instead, they often label students generically with little nuance...

Beyond language proficiency, curriculum content can also miss the opportunity to tap into students’ cultural and linguistic assets...

English learners should not be a footnote, but a foundational consideration in how we build and deliver educational content."

https://www.the74million.org/article/from-afterthought-to-priority-the-curriculum-gap-for-english-learners/

English teachers: Did you know about this awesome tool?!
(Well, now you will!)

Meet Choosy Chat, where you can type your prompt in and see THREE AI responses side by side, then choose the answer you like the best:
ChatGPT | Gemini | Claude

If you're still figuring out which conversational AI tool you'd like to use to create custom lesson content for your English students, this is a great shortcut.

https://www.choosy.chat/

Personalization isn’t “extra”; it’s access. Keep the bar high, widen the path.

Swap generic texts for their real inbox, model the tone they need at work, and pace for the time they have.

What barrier are you removing for your learners first?

Mondays don’t have to be about overstuffed to-do lists.
What if we set just one intention for the week?

Think about that student who’s been struggling more than the rest.
What’s one small thing you could do to give them a boost: a resource, an encouraging word, a personalized warm-up activity?

Sometimes, that single act of support makes the biggest difference.
Which student comes to mind for you?